


Ink is Thicker than Blood

by Stariceling



Category: Death Note, Tantei Gakuen Q | Detective Academy Q
Genre: Crossover, First Kiss, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-12-06 00:08:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stariceling/pseuds/Stariceling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without Kira's judgement, crime is once again on the rise. Are the newly-trained detectives at DDS ready to meet this new world, and what will one of them resort to to keep those he loves safe?</p><p>Spoilers to the end of Death Note, and Ryu spoilers (ep 39 or so) for Detective School Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WaryFalcon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaryFalcon/gifts).



> Started on the First Kiss meme with a kiss for Matsuda/Ryu, but I really like the idea of crossing these two worlds together. Unfortunately the plot I have for this is all broken up in patches, but I will try to type them up and post them anyway.
> 
> Warnings not listed because while some will apply later, those chapters haven't been posted yet.

Ryu had lost track of how many times he had turned the notebook over in his hands, thinking. He had not yet performed the necessary test to decide if it was real, but it certainly answered some questions. Even with all the ways he had seen of killing someone at a distance, Kira’s method remained unknown. The ability to mimic a heart attack, seemingly with no preparation, was inexplicable. Ryu often wondered if the notebook was no more than someone’s fanciful attempt to explain the Kira phenomena. He’d certainly heard stranger theories.

Only one name was written in the notebook. ‘KIRA’

There had been no confirmed Kira cases since he had written the name, but Ryu knew the correlation meant nothing. It wasn’t a real name, and he had no face to go with it. According to the rules written out on the inside cover, it didn’t work that way.

More importantly, there hadn’t been a confirmed Kira killing since he had found the notebook. That was what made him think the notebook might be real. Kira no longer had the means to kill, and that made Ryu finding the notebook at that time a heavy-handed coincidence. He had thought nothing would stop the so-called Kira permanently except death itself.

Ryu had to think of what he would do if he’d ever managed to track down Kira. He was sure every would-be detective had thought about it at one point or another. Now he had supposedly picked up the means to kill Kira, provided he could just confirm the correct identity.

It was something that ran through his mind every time his thoughts turned to the notebook. How could he not think about it, he asked himself, even knowing he was struggling to justify it. Kira didn’t only cut down criminals. He targeted police and private detectives alike, anyone who came close to him. The students at DDS were forbidden to have anything to do with any Kira case, but that hadn’t prevented dozens from being picked off over the years. So long as Kira could kill he threatened everything and everyone dear to Ryu. So how could he not think about it?

And then, belatedly, Ryu would remember Kyu defending him, swearing that he would never harm anyone. He remembered Kyu’s unconditional trust, and felt sick inside, as if he had betrayed that trust with his thoughts alone.

The Ryu would remind himself that Kira was gone, dead, not a threat any longer. With every day since the last case it seemed more certain than ever. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter if he had considered it, because he couldn’t do it.

He wouldn’t do it, Ryu amended. He had made his choice. Rather than the crime organization that lurked in the dark at his back, barely a cautious whisper in a world where Kira hunted them, Ryu belonged with the other detectives at DDS. He had devoted himself to seek out truth, not cut it down.

Ryu was almost at the point of believing that when the Shinigami came for the notebook. Then, everything changed.


	2. Chapter 1: First Kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the first kiss meme, Matsuda/Ryu

As the months passed since Kira’s death, the world returned to what it had always been with frightening speed. Crime spiked as the threat of Kira became nothing but a memory and the Church of Kira dwindled to a small cult. The students at Dan Detective School became more of an asset to the police than ever before. Matsuda particularly enjoyed the cases where he was sent to work alongside those young detectives. They were all singularly brilliant, but also had an air of life and youth and energy that made his days working with Near seem downright gray.

There was one exception to that rule. Amakusa Ryu, one of the students of Q-class, had such a controlled intensity about him that Matsuda could not help thinking of L, or of Light, every single time he looked at the boy. He didn’t have any of L’s mannerisms, and unlike Light he did not attempt to personally control every detail of an investigation, but there was something in his eyes and in his actions that Matsuda recognized. Ryu was not someone who liked to lose.

The subject of Kira had come up only once on one of their investigations. Matsuda still remembered the hard look in Ryu’s eyes when he called Kira ‘a tyrant depending on second-hand information.’ It was a view that seemed to be shared unanimously by the other students. They had seen too many cases of innocent people killed by Kira, because the evidence freeing them from guilt had not been noticed or reported soon enough. Rumors like that didn’t spread far in a world where people either praised or feared Kira, but they had still spread through DDS. Only Ryu had looked so furious when saying it, so intense that Matsuda suspected he might have considered killing Kira himself.

Matsuda got the feeling that Ryu might have been very dangerous, and had simply made the choice not to be. This impression was only reenforced when Ryu severely injured a suspect who had attempted to attack his classmate. Matsuda wouldn’t have been alarmed, but for the classmate’s reaction, telling Ryu that it ‘wasn’t like him,’ and Ryu’s refusal to say a word in his own defense.

That was what brought Matsuda to be standing outside of the door to Q-class’s second-floor classroom, when he should have been back at the station making his report. He had a feeling someone should be talking to Ryu, even though he wasn’t really sure it should be him. Matsuda stopped with one hand raised to knock, trying to figure out why he hadn’t told the same classmate who had yelled at Ryu to do this, decided he didn’t know and was just stalling, and pushed the door open without knocking.

He was glad he did, to suddenly see Ryu in such a different light. He was leaning against the window frame, his attention fixed on something outside, so that Matsuda could see him in profile. He was smiling to himself, and the expression changed him completely. His eyes were friendly and warm, his body bent towards whatever it was that made him smile, and even his lips looked softer and fuller when he smiled like that. For a moment, Matsuda couldn’t remember at all what about Ryu had reminded him of Light.

“Amakusa-kun,” Matsuda cleared his throat nervously when Ryu’s head whipped around towards him. He crossed the room to stand beside the window, across from Ryu, and couldn’t help looking out to check what Ryu had been smiling at. Kyu and Megu, two of Ryu’s classmates, were having an argument just outside the window. And even though Ryu was looking away now, his body was still turned towards the figures below, like a flower bent towards sunlight.

“Amakusa-kun,” Matsuda started again, but now he had all but forgotten about the case that morning, “If there’s someone you want to talk to, you shouldn’t be avoiding them.”

Ryu’s cheeks flushed, but the warm look had all but left his face. “I don’t have anything important to say. It wouldn’t change anything.” There was some emotion that flickered across Ryu’s face then, that made Matsuda wish he was better at reading people, so that he might know what to say.

“That doesn’t matter.” Matsuda reached up and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, because that wasn’t quite what he meant. “I won’t promise that anything will be better if you do say what you want to say, but if you never do, you could regret it.”

Ryu wouldn’t even look him in the face, then. His gaze was fixed on the wood of the window frame instead. For some reason, his apparent avoidance made Matsuda’s temper flare up.

“Are you not willing to take advice from someone who’s not a genius? You think that experience isn’t worth anything? I’m telling you because I know!” Matsuda could feel his own face growing hot, and he couldn’t believe he was shouting at the boy who had reminded him so strongly of L. From the wide-eyed look he was getting, he guessed that Ryu couldn’t believe it either.

“Wh-who was it?” Ryu asked him hesitantly.

“A great detective, who was destroyed by Kira.” That was true on too many levels, for too many of the people Matsuda had loved. “I was so sure there was no point in bringing it up with them, that they would have just looked at me and said ‘I know’ and nothing would have changed. But I think I was probably wrong. I wish now that I had told him.” Matsuda shook his head, not knowing how he might have changed anything, just wishing that somehow. . .

“Ah, sorry. I can’t tell you what to do, of course. You just reminded me of someone.” More than one someone. Looking at someone with L’s genius and Light’s drive, even if he’d had such a vulnerable look on his face a minute ago, Matsuda couldn’t believe he’d dared to say all that.

“That’s funny.” Ryu closed the distance between them in a single step, his hand catching Matsuda by the shoulder to keep him from moving away. “You remind me of someone too.”

Before Matsuda had time to mentally process Ryu’s sudden closeness, Ryu had gone up on his toes and was kissing Matsuda on the mouth. The touch of his lips was soft, shy and unsure, as if he expected to be pushed away any second. For the first instant, Matsuda could only think that Ryu’s lips were indeed softer than he had realized.

Then Matsuda’s instincts caught up with the situation. He caught Ryu around the waist and swung them both around against the wall so that anyone standing outside the window wouldn’t see them. He drew Ryu closer at the same time, kissing him back, trying to reassure Ryu that he was wanted, that his kiss was welcome.

The encouragement only served to make Ryu even bolder. He kissed Matsuda in earnest, his mouth opening and working against Matsuda as if he had been completely starved of physical affection, and was now desperate for even this small taste. Matsuda responded by practically crushing Ryu against his chest, offering reassurance the only way he knew how with his mouth so completely occupied.

When Ryu broke the kiss, they were both breathless, and Matsuda couldn’t seem to relax his arms enough to let Ryu go. He wanted to kiss Ryu again, wanted suddenly to do more than kiss him, and he couldn’t get his mind around that desire. It wasn’t until Ryu tilted his head to give Matsuda a soft peck on the cheek, suddenly looking painfully shy, that Matsuda was able to release Ryu and allow him to fall back onto his heels.

“If you can’t think of anything to say, you could just kiss him like that. I’m pretty sure it would get the point across.”

Ryu blushed so spectacularly at that, that Matsuda almost choked trying not to laugh. It was so obvious then; that Ryu’s mind was still fixed on someone else, that he hadn’t meant to let the kiss escalate like that. Even though Matsuda had forgotten completely about Light, about L, about anyone and everyone but the beautiful teen in his arms, he thought it was probably okay not to tell Ryu that.

Instead, Matsuda kissed Ryu on the forehead, as if he were still a child somehow, and added, “Don’t have any regrets, Amakusa-kun.”

“Thank you,” Ryu whispered. He looked a little shaky as he turned away from Matsuda and crossed the room, but he steadied himself at the doorway. He turned, said, “Thank you,” again in a much stronger voice, and darted out the open door. Matsuda could hear him running down the hall and down the stairs and had to grin to himself.

When he turned back to the window it was just in time to see Ryu run out the front door, in plenty of time to catch his classmate, who had been lingering outside. Most likely waiting specifically for him. Matsuda half-wished he could listen in, but just seeing the two of them together he was sure Ryu was going to be fine.


End file.
